"Assessing Ballot Structure and Split Ticket Voting:
Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment."

Journal of Politics
[Conditionally Accepted]


Authors:
-------

Tiffany D. Barnes
University of Kentucky, Department of Political Science
orcid.org/0000-0001-6211-3527
<tiffanydbarnes@uky.edu>

Carolina Tchintian
Rice University, Department of Political Science
orcid.org/0000-0001-6621-4798
<carolina.r.tchintian@rice.edu>

Santiago Alles
Rice University, Department of Political Science
orcid.org/0000-0002-0872-0809
<santiago.alles@rice.edu>


Abstract:
--------
Though a growing number of countries have implemented electronic voting, few scholars have considered the unintended consequences of such reforms. We argue that changes in ballot structure imposed by electronic voting, implemented under the exact same electoral rules, can facilitate ballot splitting. Exploiting data from three elections and a novel ballot reform in Salta, Argentina �electronic voting was incrementally introduced over multiple elections� we provide an empirical analysis of how ballot structure influences ballot splitting. We use GIS to reconstruct precinct demographics and matching to address threats to random assignment. This empirical strategy allows us to treat our data as a quasi-experiment. We find that precincts casting electronic ballots under an Australian ballot, rather than the ballot-and-envelope system, have significantly higher rates of ballot splitting. Our findings imply that less complicated voting procedures can affect the composition of legislative representation and manufacture a more inclusive legislature by facilitating strategic voting.

Reference:
---------
Barnes, Tiffany D., Carolina Tchintian, and Santiago Alles. forthcoming. "Assessing Ballot Structure and Split Ticket Voting: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment." Journal of Politics.


Description:
-----------
Data and R scripts required to replicate the results of "Assessing Ballot Structure..." (JOP, forthcoming).


Instructions:
------------
Adjust the directoy path of the main working directory at "BTA JOP Replication.r" (line #33).
Check that required packages are already installed (lines #10 to #25).
Run "BTA JOP Replication.r" R-script.

The script will call other scripts and data, which should be dropped in the main working folder.


List of Files:
-------------

(a) Replication script
  BTA JOP Replication.r

(b) R Scripts
  bta_jop_descriptive_plots.r
  bta_jop_DinD.r
  bta_jop_marginal_effect_plots.r
  bta_jop_miss_ballot.r
  bta_jop_miss_ballot_p.r
  bta_jop_models_by_party.r
  bta_jop_precinct_data.r

(c) Data files
  election_data_2011_by_votingbooth.csv
  GovHouse_election_data_2007_2011_2015.csv
  GovHouse_mainparties_data_2007_2011_2015.csv
  precinct_census_data.csv
  voting_centers_directory.csv

(d) Auxiliary files
  mod.equations.csv
  party.ids.csv
  precinct_ev_2011.csv

(e) Data Codebook
  BTA JOP Data Codebook.pdf

(f) Instructions
  ReadMe. BTA JOP Replication Data.txt [this file]
